Ribbed socks are knitted on circular knitting machines that have a dial and dial head operating dial hooks and cast-offs to cooperate with cylinder needles in forming different ribbing patterns. Ribbed socks can also have stripes or different colored heels and toes, and each color change requires a yarn change. Every yarn change produces a pair of tails that are 5-8 cm lengths of yarn extending loosely from the last stitch holding the yarns in place. These yarn tails are knitted randomly into the socks where they are caught within other stitches. They make the socks look disorderly and unattractive, so it has been necessary to manually pick the tails clear of other stitches and clip the tails off short so that the socks look neat. This is boring work that adds to the cost of the socks, because one worker can pick and clip only a few socks per minute, depending on the number of yarn changes.
I have discovered a simple and effective way to shortening the tails formed in cylinder and dial machines for knitting ribbed socks. I modify the machines so that each yarn change tail is shortened to about 4-8 mm so that it is not knitted into the sock and does not need to be picked and clipped. My discovery can be applied to a cylinder and dial knitting machine by making a few low cost changes that do not impair the machine's operation. In fact, my changes liberate machine components otherwise devoted to yarn changes and allow addition of more yarn feed fingers and greater variation in colors and yarns usable for knitting ribbed socks. The result enlarges freedom of design and lowers production costs by eliminating picking and clipping of tails.